Methods and systems for automatically providing an emergency service call handler with context specific emergency service protocols

ABSTRACT

Computer media and methods for providing emergency services protocols to an emergency service call taker are disclosed herein. A public safety answering point receives an emergency service phone call from a caller. The caller is placed in voice communication with an emergency call handler. The system monitors the voice communication between the caller and the emergency call handler. In response to detecting one or more known keyword in the voice communication, the system provides the emergency call handler with one or more defined protocols for guiding additional communications between the caller and the emergency call handler.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit of co-pending and commonly ownedU.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/853,905 filed Mar. 29, 2013, hereinincorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.

BACKGROUND

A public safety answering point (PSAP), sometimes called “public safetyaccess point”, is a call center responsible for answering calls to anemergency telephone number for police, firefighting, and ambulanceservices. Trained emergency service call takers are typicallyresponsible for obtaining relevant information from a caller anddispatching the appropriate emergency service resources to theappropriate location.

In order to assist the emergency call takers, many PSAPs utilize definedemergency service protocols (ESPs) for providing standard instructionsfor various types of common emergency service situations. For example,if a caller tells the call taker someone is not breathing, anappropriate ESP may guide the call taker through giving the callerinstructions on performing CPR or other basic first aid procedures.Other protocols may be directed at how to obtain appropriate informationfrom the caller. For example, if the call involves a bomb threat, anappropriate ESP may instruct the call taker to notify the bomb squad andfire department and give the call taker instructions on how to attemptto guide the conversation with the caller to obtain criticalinformation. In conventional 9-1-1 systems, where the voicetransmissions between a caller and call taker may be analog signals, andthe call taker must know to recognize certain words or phrases spoken bya caller and look up any appropriate protocols. This additional steptakes the call taker's attention away from dealing with the caller, andcan cause delay and confusion which, in the context of an emergencyservices call, can lead directly to harm to individuals, damage toproperty, and/or additional, preventable consequences.

Advances in communication technology, specifically data connectivity andvoice-over-IP technology, has led to the implementation ofEnhanced-9-1-1 and Next Generation 9-1-1 standards. Broadly speaking,Next Generation 9-1-1 (“NG9-1-1”) can be viewed as a system comprised ofEmergency Services IP networks (“ESInets”), internet protocol (“IP”)based software services and application, and various databases and datamanagement processes that are all interconnected to a public safetyanswering point (PSAP). The NG9-1-1 system provides location-basedrouting to the appropriate emergency entity, such that a caller in needof help is automatically routed to the PSAP assigned to the caller'slocation. NG9-1-1 also provides standardized interfaces for call andmessage services, processes all types of emergency calls includingnon-voice (multimedia) messages, acquires and integrates additional datauseful to call routing and handling for appropriate emergency entities.NG9-1-1 supports all legacy E9-1-1 features and functions and isintended to provide scalable solution for meeting current and emergingneeds for emergency communication between callers and Public Safetyentities.

The NG9-1-1 system architecture is defined by the National EmergencyNumber Association (“NENA”) i3 standard and supports end-to-end IPconnectivity between a caller and a public safety answering point(PSAP). The i3 standard defines an ESInet, which sits between various,non-emergency communications networks and one or more PSAPs, as well asthe ESInet's various functional elements, such as a Location InformationServer (LIS) and Location Validation Function (LVF), the EmergencyServices Routing Proxy (ESRP) and Policy Routing Function (PRF) and theEmergency Call Routing Function and Location to Service Translation(LoST) protocol. All of these elements are designed to provide robustand secure communications between a variety of communications devicesand emergency service providers.

The i3 standard requires all calls presented to the ESInet from anoriginating network, such as a typical telecommunications serviceprovider (“TSP”) network to use session initiation protocol (“SIP”)signaling to deliver the call and include the location with the call.SIP is a signaling protocol used to start, change and end telephone andmultimedia communication sessions over IP networks. Upon reaching theESInet, call traffic encounters the Border Control Function (BCF) whichsits between external networks and the ESInet. An emergency servicecall, with location information, enters the ESInet through the BCF.After passing through the BCF, the first element inside the ESInet isthe Emergency Services Routing Proxy (ESRP). The ESRP receives the call,and passes this information to an Emergency Call Routing Function(ECRF), which determines the next hop in routing a call to the requestedservice. The ECRF maps the call's location information and requestedservice (e.g. police, which may be routed to a city-operated PSAP orfire department, which may be routed to a county-operated PSAP) to anappropriate PSAP.

In the event an ESInet is provisioned in an area before the regionalTSPs and other originating networks or PSAPs are NG9-1-1 capable, NENAhas defined a transition model. In this case, the legacy E911 networkhas been replaced by the Emergency Services IP Network (ESInet) with allof the functional elements previously described, but on either end(originating network and/or PSAP) is a legacy environment. To provideconnectivity to both the legacy networks and the legacy PSAPs, NG9-1-1defines a legacy network gateway and a legacy PSAP gateway to convertthe data to and from SIP messaging for transmission over the ESInetuntil such time as the originating networks and PSAPs become i3 capable.

A beneficial side effect of the transition to the NG9-1-1 environment isthat all emergency service phone calls will be converted to digital dataand stored for future review. This further enables new and advantageousinformation processing techniques to be applied to emergency servicecalls in real time in order to assist emergency service call takers inperforming their jobs.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various embodiments in accordance with the present disclosure will bedescribed with reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram depicting aspects of a non-limiting,exemplary computing architecture suitable for implementing at least someaspects and/or embodiments of the present systems and methods.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram depicting an emergency servicescommunications network advantageously featuring aspects of the presentmethods and systems.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram depicting an emergency servicescommunications network advantageously featuring additional aspects ofthe present methods and systems.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart depicting the operational steps of certainaspects of the present methods and systems.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

This description discusses various illustrative embodiments of thepresent methods and systems for monitoring the content of an emergencyservice phone call and providing a call handler with context specificprotocols (“the present methods and systems”) with reference to theaccompanying drawings in order to provide a person having ordinary skillin the relevant art with a full, clear, and concise description of thesubject matter defined by the claims which follow, and to enable such aperson to appreciate and understand how to make and use the same.However, this description should not be read to limit the scope of theclaimed subject matter, nor does the presence of an embodiment in thisdescription imply any preference of the described embodiment over anyother embodiment, unless such a preference is explicitly identifiedherein. It is the claims, not this description or other sections of thisdocument or the accompanying drawings, which define the scope of thesubject matter to which the inventor and/or the inventor's assignee(s)claim exclusive rights.

Embodiments of the present methods and systems may be implemented bysystems using one or more programmable digital computers. Computer andcomputer systems in connection with embodiments of the invention mayact, e.g., as workstations and/or servers, such as described below.Digital voice and/or data networks such as may be used in connectionwith embodiments of the invention may also include components (e.g.,routers, bridges, media gateways, etc.) with similar architectures,although they may be adapted, e.g., as known in the art, for theirspecial purposes. Because of this commonality of architecture, suchnetwork components may be considered as computer systems and/orcomponents of computer systems when consistent with the applicablecontext.

FIG. 1 depicts an example of one such computer system 100, whichincludes at least one processor 110, such as, e.g., an Intel or AdvancedMicro Devices microprocessor, coupled to a communications channel or bus112. The computer system 100 further includes at least one input device114 such as, e.g., a keyboard, mouse, touch pad or screen, or otherselection or pointing device, at least one output device 116 such as,e.g., an electronic display device, at least one communicationsinterface 118, at least one data storage device 120 such as a magneticdisk or an optical disk, and memory 122 such as ROM and RAM, eachcoupled to the communications channel 112. The communications interface118 may be coupled to a network (not depicted) such as the Internet.

Although the computer system 100 is shown in FIG. 1 to have only asingle communications channel 112, a person skilled in the relevant artswill recognize that a computer system may have multiple channels (notdepicted), including for example one or more busses, and that suchchannels may be interconnected, e.g., by one or more bridges. In such aconfiguration, components depicted in FIG. 1 as connected by a singlechannel 112 may interoperate, and may thereby be considered to becoupled to one another, despite being directly connected to differentcommunications channels.

One skilled in the art will recognize that, although the data storagedevice 120 and memory 122 are depicted as different units, the datastorage device 120 and memory 122 can be parts of the same unit orunits, and that the functions of one can be shared in whole or in partby the other, e.g., as RAM disks, virtual memory, etc. It will also beappreciated that any particular computer may have multiple components ofa given type, e.g., processors 110, input devices 114, communicationsinterfaces 118, etc.

The data storage device 120 (FIG. 1) and/or memory 122 may storeinstructions executable by one or more processors or kinds of processors110, data, or both. Some groups of instructions, possibly grouped withdata, may make up one or more programs, which may include an operatingsystem such as Microsoft Windows®, Linux®, Mac OS®, or Unix®. Otherprograms may be stored instead of or in addition to the operatingsystem. It will be appreciated that a computer system may also beimplemented on platforms and operating systems other than thosementioned. Any operating system or other program, or any part of either,may be written using one or more programming languages such as, e.g.,Java®, C, C++, C#, Visual Basic®, VB.NET®, Perl, Ruby, Python, or otherprogramming languages, possibly using object oriented design and/orcoding techniques.

One skilled in the art will recognize that the computer system 100(FIG. 1) may also include additional components and/or systems, such asnetwork connections, additional memory, additional processors, networkinterfaces, input/output busses, for example. One skilled in the artwill also recognize that the programs and data may be received by andstored in the system in alternative ways. For example, acomputer-readable storage medium (CRSM) reader 136, such as, e.g., amagnetic disk drive, magneto-optical drive, optical disk drive, or flashdrive, may be coupled to the communications channel 112 for reading froma CRSM 138 such as, e.g., a magnetic disk, a magneto-optical disk, anoptical disk, or flash RAM. Alternatively, one or more CRSM readers maybe coupled to the rest of the computer system 100, e.g., through anetwork interface (not depicted) or a communications interface 118. Inany such configuration, however, the computer system 100 may receiveprograms and/or data via the CRSM reader 136. Further, it will beappreciated that the term “memory” herein is intended to include varioustypes of suitable data storage media, whether permanent or temporary,including among other things the data storage device 120, the memory122, and the CSRM 138.

The terms “computer-readable storage medium” and “computer-readablestorage media” refer, respectively, to a medium and media capable ofstoring information. As such, both terms exclude transient propagatingsignals.

Two or more computer systems 100 (FIG. 1) may communicate, e.g., in oneor more networks, via, e.g., their respective communications interfaces118 and/or network interfaces (not depicted).

FIG. 2 depicts a communications system 200, including an ESInet 204connected to an origination network 208 and a PSAP 212 via BCFs 210,211, suitable for use with the present methods and systems. When anemergency voice call 216 is routed to the PSAP 212 from the originationnetwork 208 via ESInet 204, the caller is connected to an emergencyservice call handler (not shown) via a call handling application 220.The call is also routed to a session recorder 224 for analysis, reviewand archival purposes.

In accordance with the present methods and systems, an automatedprotocol selection function (APSF) 228 is provided. As call 216 is beingrecorded by session recorder 224 it is also input to the APSF 228. TheAPSF 228 may include a speech recognition element 232, a comparisonelement 240, a protocol selection element 244, a keyword database 246,and a protocol database 248. Speech recognition element 232 may monitorthe digital data transmission that corresponds to the voicecommunication between the caller and the emergency services call takerand apply a speech recognition process to detect words and/or phrasesbeing spoken by the caller. For example, the speech recognition element232 may divide the caller's speech into segments, which may be on theorder of magnitude of a hundredth of a second in duration and comparethe segments to a set of known phonemes. The speech recognition element232 may then perform a contextual phoneme analysis on each phonemeidentified in the call to other phonemes in its temporal vicinity inorder to determine the language being spoken and identify what word orphrase in that language the caller is using. This may advantageouslyoccur substantially in real-time, as the caller is speaking.Commercially available speech recognition solutions such as MicrosoftVoice Command (Microsoft Corporation), Sonic Extractor (DigitialSyphon), LumenVox Speech Engine (LumenVox), Nuance Voice Control (NuanceCommunications), VITO Voice2Go (Vito Technology), and Speereo VoiceTranslator (Speereo Software) are exemplary but non-limitingimplementations of aspects of the speech recognition element 232.

After a word or phrase 252 is identified by the speech recognitionelement 232 it is passed to comparison element 240. Comparison element240 compares the word or phrase 252 identified by speech recognitionelement 232 to a set of known keywords and phrases stored in keyworddatabase 246. Each keyword and phrase in keyword database 246 isassociated with one or more emergency service protocols 256 stored inprotocol database 248. If comparison element 240 detects a match betweenthe spoken word or phrase 252 and one of the known keywords or phrases,it notifies the protocol selection element 244. Protocol selectionelement 244 retrieves the appropriate emergency service protocol(s) 256identified by the detected keyword or phrase and transmits the protocol256 to the call handling application 220 where it is displayed to theemergency service call taker to assist him/her in handling the call.

For example, a caller may state, “Help, my wife isn't breathing!” Speechrecognition element 232 will break this phrase down into the set ofphonemes and, after running a contextual analysis, identify theindividual words “Help,” “my,” “wife,” “isn't,” and “breathing.” Thesewords are then passed to the comparison element 240 which may comparethe individual words and sub-sets of words within the phrase to theknown key words and phrases stored in keyword database 246. The one suchknown phrase may be “isn't breathing,” or variations thereof, andcomparison element 240 will match that known phrase to the correspondingsubset of words from the caller's statement. The phrase “isn'tbreathing” may be linked to an emergency service protocol on CPRinstructions. The protocol selection element 244 may then retrieve theCPR protocol from protocol database 248 and display it for the emergencyservices call taker taking the call. Thus, the emergency services calltaker can seamlessly provide instructions to the caller without havingto stop, mentally process the statement, and look up the appropriateprotocol him/herself.

If, however, the caller states, “Help, my baby isn't breathing!” theword “baby” may be detected in addition to “isn't breathing” and theprotocol selection element may advantageously determine to provide theemergency service call taker with an infant specific CPR protocol.

Certain embodiments of the present methods and systems mayadvantageously filter the incoming call data to distinguish betweenforeground noise, i.e. the caller's voice, and background noise. Thebackground noise may be separately analyzed by a background analysiselement 260 for relevant information, such as the presence of sirens,alarms, additional voices, gun shots, explosions, etc. Detection of suchinformation may also factor into the determination of the appropriateprotocol to provide to the emergency service call handler.

FIG. 3 depicts additional aspects of the present methods and systems,which may advantageously distinguish the caller's speech from theemergency service call taker's speech. For example, if the PSAP is alegacy PSAP 312, the digital IP data 313 transmitted by the ESInet 303will be converted back to a legacy format 304 by a Legacy PSAP gatewayfunction 305. In order to provide the functionality of the presentmethods and systems, the legacy formatted data 304 may be reconverted toIP data 313 by an IP conversion function 348 prior to being input to thesession recorder 324. If the network transport path from the originatingnetwork to the legacy PSAP 312 is a legacy network (not depicted) ratherthan an ESInet, the data is delivered directly 360 to the IP conversionfunction 348 rather than the legacy PSAP gateway 305.

Still referring to FIG. 3, further alternative aspects of the presentmethods and systems may, prior to analysis by a speech recognitionelement, input the call data into a parsing element 350 in order todistinguish voice-data packets originating from the PSAP's IP addressfrom voice-data packets originating from other IP addresses, therebydistinguishing the caller's speech 354 from the call taker's speech 358.In certain embodiments, the call taker's voice may be discarded and theprotocol selection process may proceed as described above with referenceto FIG. 2. Alternately, the separate instantiations of the speechrecognition element 332, 333 may separately process the caller's speech354 and the call taker's speech 358 and separate instantiations of thecomparison element 340, 341 may compare identified words or phrases inthe respective sides of the conversation to separate sets of keywords.Such an aspect of the present method and system may, for example, givethe call taker the ability to call up emergency service protocols usingvoice commands in the context of the conversation with the caller.

FIG. 4 depicts the steps of certain embodiments of the present methodsand systems. A caller initiates an emergency service phone call 404 viaan originating communication network. The origination network detectsthat the call is an emergency service call and routes the call to alocal transport network, such as an ESInet or a legacy network, 408. Thecall is then routed to the appropriate PSAP 412. A two way communicationchannel is opened 414 between the caller and an emergency service callhandler at the PSAP and the digital data corresponding to the voicecommunication between the caller and the call handler is monitored by asession recorder and an APSF 416. The APSF performs a speech recognitionanalysis on the voice communication 420 and identifies particular wordsand/or phrases being spoken by the caller 424. The identified wordsand/or phrases are then compared to a known set of keywords 428. If amatch is detected 450, the APSF retrieves an emergency service protocolassociated with the matched keyword 432 and provides the protocol to theemergency service call handler 436.

It should be understood that the present methods and systems describedabove can be implemented in locally installed software applications, forexample, substantially running on computing hardware at the PSAP. Thepresent methods and systems could, however, also be implemented via asoftware as a service model, wherein the majority of computations aredone at a remote location via network communications and the PSAP runs a‘lightweight’ client application that predominately acts as an interfaceto the remote applications.

Exemplary embodiments of the present methods and systems have beendescribed in detail above and in the accompanying figures forillustrative purposes. However, the scope of the present methods andsystems are defined by the claims below and is not limited to theembodiments described above or depicted in the figures. Embodimentsdiffering from those described and shown herein, but still within thescope of the defined methods and systems are envisioned by the inventorsand will be apparent to persons having ordinary skill in the relevantart in view of this specification as a whole. The inventors intend forthe defined methods and systems to be practiced other than as explicitlydescribed herein. Accordingly, the defined methods and systems encompassall modifications and equivalents of the subject matter as permitted byapplicable law.

That which is claimed is:
 1. A non-transitory computer readable mediumhaving computer-executable instructions stored thereon which, whenexecuted by a computer, will cause the computer to perform a process forhandling emergency services calls, the process comprising the steps of:monitoring digital data corresponding to a voice communication between acaller and an emergency service call handler for a digitalrepresentation of a known keyword; responsive to detection of saiddigital representation of said known keyword, providing said emergencycall handler with a protocol for guiding additional communicationsbetween said caller and said emergency call handler; distinguishingbetween voice data corresponding to words spoken by said caller andvoice data corresponding to said emergency service call handler; andselecting a first set of instructions for the protocol if said knownkeyword is identified as being spoken by said caller and selecting asecond set of instructions for the protocol if said known keyword isidentified as being spoken by said emergency service call handler. 2.The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, whereinmonitoring digital data corresponding to a voice communication between acaller and an emergency service call handler for a digitalrepresentation of a known keyword further comprises the steps of:performing a speech recognition analysis on said digital data toidentify words being spoken during said voice communication, andcomparing one or more of a set of known keywords to at least one word ofthe words identified using the speech recognition analysis to identify aword or words spoken during said voice communication; and the step ofproviding said emergency call handler with a protocol for guidingadditional communications between said caller and said emergency callhandler further comprises the steps of: selecting said protocol from aset of pre-defined protocols, and displaying said selected protocol tosaid emergency service call handler via a call handling application. 3.The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein:monitoring digital data corresponding to a voice communication between acaller and an emergency service call handler for a digitalrepresentation of a known keyword further comprises monitoring digitaldata corresponding to a voice communication between a caller and anemergency service call handler for a digital representation of a knownkey phrase; responding to detection of said digital representation ofsaid known keyword by providing said emergency call handler with aprotocol for guiding additional communications between said caller andsaid emergency call handler further comprises, responsive to detectionof said digital representation of said known key phrase, providing saidemergency call handler with a protocol for guiding additionalcommunications between said caller and said emergency call handler; andselecting a first set of instructions for the protocol if said knownkeyword is identified as being spoken by said caller and selecting asecond set of instructions for the protocol if said known keyword isidentified as being spoken by said emergency service call handlerfurther comprises selecting a first set of instructions for the protocolif said known key phrase is identified as being spoken by said callerand selecting a second set of instructions for the protocol if saidknown key phrase is identified as being spoken by said emergency servicecall handler.
 4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1,wherein: selecting a first set of instructions for the protocol if saidknown keyword is identified as being spoken by said caller and selectinga second set of instructions for the protocol if said known keyword isidentified as being spoken by said emergency service call handlerfurther comprises giving priority to selecting the second set ofinstructions for the protocol if said known keyword is identified asbeing spoken by said emergency service call handler.
 5. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein: saiddigital data comprises a set of digital data divided into packets,wherein said packets include header information; and distinguishingbetween voice data corresponding to words spoken by said caller andvoice data corresponding to said emergency service call handler furthercomprises comparing said header information for one or more packets toan IP address corresponding to said emergency service call handler. 6.The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein theprocess further includes the step of: comparing the digital datacorresponding to said voice communication to a set of known backgroundsounds; and selecting a first set of instructions for the protocol ifsaid known keyword is identified as being spoken by said caller andselecting a second set of instructions for the protocol if said knownkeyword is identified as being spoken by said emergency service callhandler further includes: selecting the first set of instructions basedon said known keyword being spoken by said caller and said identifiedbackground sounds, and selecting the second set of instructions based onsaid known keyword being spoken by said emergency service call handlerand said identified background sounds.
 7. The non-transitory computerreadable medium of claim 6, wherein the known keyword further comprisesa known key phrase and the set of known keywords further includes knownkey phrases.
 8. A non-transitory computer readable medium havingcomputer-executable instructions stored thereon which, when executed bya computer, will cause the computer to perform a process for emergencycall handling, the process comprising the steps of: receiving a digitaldata stream corresponding to a voice communication between a caller andan emergency service call handler; distinguishing between voice datacorresponding to words spoken by said caller and voice datacorresponding to said emergency service call handler; and selecting afirst set of instructions for a protocol for handling the communicationif a known word is identified as being spoken by said caller andselecting a second set of instructions for a protocol for handling thecommunication if the known word is identified as being spoken by saidemergency service call handler.
 9. The non-transitory computer readablemedium of claim 8, wherein distinguishing between voice datacorresponding to words spoken by said caller and voice datacorresponding to said emergency service call handler further comprisescomparing header information in a data packet to an IP addresscorresponding to said emergency service call handler to distinguishvoice data corresponding to said emergency service call handler.
 10. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein selecting afirst set of instructions for the protocol if a known word is identifiedas being spoken by said caller and selecting a second set ofinstructions for the protocol if the known word is identified as beingspoken by said emergency service call handler further comprisesselecting a first set of instructions if a known phrase is identified asbeing spoken by said caller and selecting a second set of instructionsif the known phrase is identified as being spoken by said emergencyservice call handler.
 11. The non-transitory computer readable medium ofclaim 8, wherein selecting a first set of instructions for the protocolif a known word is identified as being spoken by said caller andselecting a second set of instructions for the protocol if the knownword is identified as being spoken by said emergency service callhandler further comprises giving priority to selecting the second set ofinstructions for the protocol if the known word is identified as beingspoken by said emergency service call handler.
 12. The non-transitorycomputer readable medium of claim 8, wherein the process furtherincludes the step of: comparing the digital data stream of said voicecommunication to a set of known background sounds; and the step ofselecting a first set of instructions for the protocol if said knownkeyword is identified as being spoken by said caller and selecting asecond set of instructions for the protocol if said known keyword isidentified as being spoken by said emergency service call handlerfurther includes: selecting the first set of instructions based on saidknown keyword spoken by said caller and said identified backgroundsounds, and selecting the second set of instructions based on said knownkeyword spoken by said emergency service call handler and saididentified background sounds.
 13. A method for handling emergencyservices calls, comprising the steps of: monitoring digital datacorresponding to a voice communication between a caller and an emergencyservice call handler for a digital representation of a known key phrase;responsive to detection of said digital representation of said known keyphrase, providing said emergency call handler with a protocol forguiding additional communications between said caller and said emergencycall handler; distinguishing between voice data corresponding to wordsspoken by said caller and voice data corresponding to said emergencyservice call handler; and selecting a first set of instructions for theprotocol if said known key phrase is identified as being spoken by saidcaller and selecting a second set of instructions for the protocol ifsaid known key phrase is identified as being spoken by said emergencyservice call handler.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein: monitoringdigital data corresponding to a voice communication between a caller andan emergency service call handler for a digital representation of aknown key phrase further comprises performing a speech recognitionanalysis on said digital data to identify words being spoken during saidvoice communication, and comparing a set of known key phrases to theidentified words being spoken during said voice communication; andproviding said emergency call handler with a protocol for guidingadditional communications between said caller and said emergency callhandler further comprises selecting said protocol from a set ofpre-defined protocols, and displaying said selected protocol to saidemergency service call handler via a call handling application.
 15. Themethod of claim 13, wherein: selecting a first set of instructions forthe protocol if said known key phrase is identified as being spoken bysaid caller and selecting a second set of instructions for the protocolif said known key phrase is identified as being spoken by said emergencyservice call handler further comprises giving priority to selecting thesecond set of instructions if said known key phrase is identified asbeing spoken by said emergency service call handler.
 16. The method ofclaim 13, wherein: said digital data comprises a set of digital datadivided into packets, wherein said packets include header information;and distinguishing between voice data corresponding to words spoken bysaid caller and voice data corresponding to said emergency service callhandler further comprises comparing said header information for one ormore packets to an IP address corresponding to said emergency servicecall handler.
 17. The method of claim 13, the process further including:comparing the digital data corresponding to said voice communication toa set of known background sounds to identify one or more of thebackground sounds; and wherein selecting a first set of instructions forthe protocol if said known key phrase is identified as being spoken bysaid caller and selecting a second set of instructions for the protocolif said known key phrase is identified as being spoken by said emergencyservice call handler further includes selecting the first set ofinstructions for the protocol based on said known key phrase spoken bysaid caller and said identified background sounds, and selecting thesecond set of instructions for the protocol based on said known keyphrase spoken by said emergency service call handler and said identifiedbackground sounds.